PLOT: A wearisome, buttoned-upwards couple seeking shelter from a massive rainstorm are welcomed into the castle of a singing and dancing transsexual scientist intent on creating a strapping body-architect.

REVIEW: A twelvemonth after what would have fabricated far more than sense every bit a 40 year anniversary (1975-2015), for reasons unclear if not unjustified, Fox every bit decided to hatch a televisual makeover the cult-archetype horror musical, THE ROCKY HORROR Film SHOW. Sure, the studio already endemic the rights, and given the success of "The Grease Live" redo and the popularity of flagship programs like Glee and High School Musical, one tin suppose the line of thinking makes sense. Merely whereas the original atoned for its lack of resources with a raw ingenuity and unbridled verve, this glossily overproduced $20 million production does little to nothing to compensate for what is essentially a pandering, by-the-numbers, song-by-song echo of the original. For a movie likely meant to empower the trans-movement of the concluding few years, LET'Southward DO THE Fourth dimension WARP is neither transgressive nor transcendent enough to make any sort of lasting impression. In fact, the simply thing scarifying here is that, compared to the perversion of the original, information technology's quite neutered!

For those non in tune with the story beats of the 1975 version, LET'South DO THE Fourth dimension WARP pretty much follows in lockstep. Later on an opening number from a picture palace usherette (Ivy Levan) that sets the stage – i that awkwardly tries to recreate a raucous cult-movie-going crowd that sings along – we run across our impeccably handsome couple, Brad (Ryan McCartan) and Janet (Victoria Justice). They lament their car breaking down in the rain, and before long they happen upon a decrepit mansion in seek of refuge. More than familiar characters come into play, the handyman Riff Raff (Reeve Carney), Magenta the maid (Christina Milian), the groupie Columbia (Annaleigh Ashford), The Butler (Jayne Eastwood) and of form, the role made infamous by Tim Curry, the transgendered Dr. Frank Furter (Laverne Cox). Oh, and speaking of Curry, he's somehow agreed to narrate this production, doing and then with a doddering lilt that makes you wonder if he's even sure where he is, much less what he'southward doing.

In one case welcomed in, Brad and Janet are slowly seduced by the mad scientist, who hither is intent patching together The Creation, an oily beau-hunk of a body-builder played by a dude named Staz Nair. Seriously. This guy looks like a Dolph Lundgren cross between He-Man and Drago, the gold-lame boxer shorts on full display. In the Meatloaf role of Eddie, we go Adam Lambert every bit a tattooed, mutton-chopped rocker, as well as Ben Vereen (wow) to play the rival mad-scientist Dr. Everett Scott, originated by Jonathan Adams. The requisite playlist is hit, 1 by one, with varying results of entertainment value and without even a modicum of the lewd crudity and exorbitant decadence of the original. Some songs are mildly catchy, most are wildly kitschy, but exterior of Victoria Justice parading around in a bra and miniskirt, never adequately state the high-level of sexiness and manic energy of Susan Sarandon and company. Then again, few can.

The real indictment of this show is the question of who volition it possibly appeal to? If you're a fan of the 1975 classic, this won't and so much every bit induce commemoration as it volition a dismissive eye-gyre of a what's clearly an ersatz update, and those not familiar with the original would just do wise to sentry the progenitor instead. The song and trip the light fantastic numbers aren't particularly enthralling, and only modified a scrap to tailor the 2016 sound-sensibilities, but never so much that yous can't recognize the tunes. I'll be existent, there were a few jams I dug on a bit, if only in a sort of guilty pleasure sort of manner, not necessarily out of nostalgia. Peradventure if this were a live production like Grease was, there'd be more inherent excitment to information technology all. The other dubious distinction virtually this production is the casting. Non to cast serious aspersions on Laverne Cox, just she seems far more suited hither to be a toothpaste model than a magnetic Tim Curry equal. She simply cannot control the phase in a way needed, instead comes across way too campy, mode besides hysterical and histrionic for her ain skilful. In fact, I fail to see how casting a transgendered player as a perhaps the virtually iconic movie transvestite is at all progressive. Shouldn't trans-actors get a chance to play non-trans roles, and vice versa? Wouldn't that exist more than evolved, a la Back-scratch doing it in 1975?

Don't accept it from me however. Original ROCKY HORROR songwriter Richard O'Brien had this to say about the casting: "I think that it is a project that is misconceived and (sadly for the players) desperately cast. The producer and director seem to have missed the point entirely. I will say no more than as I may exist tempted to say too much." I tend to agree with O'Brien here, even if this aspect of the movie is only marginally dampening. For me, the real issue is how this primetime Trick one-off lacks the overt decadence and lust-filled perversion of the original. Information technology'southward simply too safe and audio to stir the kind of raucous reaction of the '75 version. Worse, it isn't remotely scary. Not to say the original was petrifying or anything, but at least it attempted a serious sense of the macabre. Here it's all so overproduced, needlessly and profligately so, all amounting to piddling more than a 2-part Halloween episode of Glee. If that's your bag, or yous're a Victoria Justice fan, past all ways dig in. If you're staunch Arrow in the Header, you probably won't find as well much to enjoy here.